


The Smithsonian Institution's Captain America Collection

by thundercrackfic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 1940s, Artist Steve Rogers, Blow Jobs, Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, F/M, First Time Blow Jobs, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, POV Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 01:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20715809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercrackfic/pseuds/thundercrackfic
Summary: Tracing the true stories behind the objects on display at the Smithsonian Institution's "Captain America: The Living Legend and Symbol of Courage" exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum through the lives of Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, the Howling Commandos, Peggy Carter, Sharon Carter, and some young historians, with lots of love and feels and hurt and fluff and comfort along the way.





	1. Brooklyn

## July 1938

The left arm didn’t look right. Something about the way the shoulder muscle met the bicep looked lumpy where it ought to be round and full. Steve rubbed his eraser against his rough wool blanket, then held down the thin sheet of newsprint and carefully wiped off the light pencil lines. He blew gently on the paper to get rid of the eraser crumbs, and the breath turned into a watery coughing fit that made his ribs ache. When he could open his eyes again, he saw a drop of spittle sliming the carefully drawn drapery of the picture he’d been copying. _Shit._

He dropped his pencil and eraser onto the sheets in frustration and leaned against the wall, exhaling carefully so as not to set off another round of coughing. Sweat dripped off his eyebrow. He looked at the open window, wishing the long July day would just hurry up and turn into night, when it’d be cooler and Bucky would be home. Steve was going stir-crazy, stuck in his bed sick on a summer day. He cursed his weak body for being dumb enough to contract pneumonia _during the summer_, what the hell. He closed his eyes. Maybe he’d try to sleep a little.

The late afternoon light was golden on the brick wall outside his window when he finally heard the key in the front door lock. He heard Bucky come in, toss his keys on the table, sounds of him moving around the kitchen. Then he was in the bedroom doorway, peeking carefully in to see if Steve was asleep. Bucky’s worried look softened a little into his sideways grin when he saw Steve sitting up, propped on a pillow against the wall. “You look like hell. How do you feel?”

“Looks aren’t everything,” Steve said. “I’m getting better.” Then, of course, he nearly coughed up a lung.

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky said, sitting down next to him and holding him up until the coughing fit was over. Bucky handed Steve his handkerchief and Steve spat into it, reflexively checking it for blood, a habit since his mother’s death from tuberculosis. No blood, that’s good.

“Mrs. Guttenberg made you some chicken soup. It’s in the kitchen. Can you eat it out there or should I bring it to you in here?”

“It’s too hot for soup. Why’s Mrs. Guttenberg making chicken soup in July?”

“She couldn’t say no to my pretty face.” Bucky grinned. “She made it special for you. C’mon, get up and eat, you need your strength.”

Steve groaned but allowed Bucky to help him up, pausing for a moment as a wave of lightheadedness hit him, grateful for the strong arm around his waist that helped him first to the head and then to the tiny kitchen table. Steve blinked in surprise. Next to the tin pot of soup sat two square packages, each wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.

“Aw, Buck, you shouldn’t have.”

“’Course I should. Drink some soup and then open them. Happy birthday.”

The smaller package turned out to be a slice of pound cake. Steve hadn’t been hungry for days, but the rich yellow cake made his mouth water and he broke off a piece, glaring at Bucky for having figured out how to get calories into Steve’s exhausted body.

Bucky just smirked back. “Open the other one,” he said, his knee bouncing as he tapped his foot on the floor.

“Maybe I’ll save it for tomorrow. Soup and cake is already as much excitement as I can handle today.”

“Quit being a punk and open it, c’mon.”

Steve smiled, smug about getting a rise out of Bucky. He reached for the package and pretended to examine it carefully. He pulled on the twine slowly, using his long fingers to tease apart the knot methodically. He glanced at Bucky, who was gritting his teeth. He unfolded the paper one corner at a time and slid his finger under the tape, gently peeling it away.

“Steve, swear to God I’m going to punch you.”

“If I’m careful with the paper I can save it for drawing on.” But Steve relented, pulling off the paper to reveal a book: _Atlas of Anatomy for Artists_. Steve opened the worn cover and flipped through pages. It contained beautifully detailed lithographs of human skeleton and musculature. Plate after plate showed the change in shape with each muscle’s action. He stopped on a page that showed the upper arm, how the deltoid and pectoral muscles fitted together with the cephalic vein stretching along the furrow between them, how both muscles bunched and rounded with the raising of the arm.

“You said you were having trouble with getting the muscles right and I asked Mr. Hickam what could help you with that and he told me you should have this, that all the artists use it.”

“Thanks, Buck, this is really swell,” Steve said, smiling at Bucky, for once not smirking but instead openly happy. Then he frowned. “How’d you pay for this?”

Bucky shrugged. “Last month when he got a big shipment from England I unloaded the crates for him and he gave me a good price.” It’d been after a day at the docks, when his body had already been tired and his hands sore and his body sweaty and desperate for a wash, three hours of bending and lifting and shuttling books all around the dusty warren of Hickam’s bookstore, but it’d all been worth it to give Steve this moment of joy on an otherwise terrible twentieth birthday.

It took two weeks for Steve to recover enough to venture outside of the apartment. He lost his job, again, and felt like shit for being such a useless pal to Bucky. But in that time he’d memorized every bone and muscle in the book, copying a full-body drawing onto the flattened piece of brown wrapping paper, front and back both, labeling every muscle and tendon, then going over the whole thing with pen and ink.

Armed with his new knowledge, he returned to his exercise of copying from his book of lithographs of marble statues and saw an immediate improvement. Knowing how the muscles worked under the skin gave his work a solidity and rightness it had lacked before. Steve began to assemble a portfolio of drawings he was proud enough of to show to other people. He started getting work drawing and lettering advertisements for the neighborhood stores – finally, work he could usually keep doing even when he was pretty sick.

Around the same time, Bucky found some occasional night work that brought in an extra few dollars a week. He never told Steve what it was. The money reduced the stress of the boys’ lives a little. Steve could afford medicine that eased the symptoms of his incessant illness. They could buy more and better food, eating meat more often. The better diet didn’t have a visible effect on Steve (it did make him less cold in the winter), but it filled out Bucky’s lanky body. His work at the docks converted the extra calories into lean muscle.

Girls who’d already liked his pretty face and glib patter caught their breath when they saw him now. Bucky could get dates every Friday and Saturday nights, often two – one girl for Steve, one for him, over Steve’s protests. Steve’s dates never asked for a second one, though they sometimes asked for a second one with Bucky.

Steve still spent plenty of time sick and stuck in the apartment. He urged Bucky to go out without him, and sometimes the older boy did, but often he stayed behind, usually reading the paper to Steve. For the rest of his life Steve would remember the runup to the war as being narrated in Bucky’s voice.

## December 1938

Christmas was peaceful, cold but clear, as the boys returned home from midnight mass. Steve had only been well enough to attend midnight Christmas mass one year out of three, but this year was a lucky one.

As Steve walked in to the dark apartment, his breath fogged in the cold kitchen air. Bucky buried his head in the kitchen cabinet, rummaging around. Steve seized the moment to sneak into their shared bedroom, pulling a paper-wrapped box from under his bed. He tiptoed to the kitchen and placed it on the table.

Bucky peeked out of the cabinet, frowning when he saw Steve’s package. “I thought you said we weren’t going to do presents this year.”

Steve grinned. “I lied. I couldn’t resist.”

“Good thing I never listen to you,” he said, producing a smaller package and handing it to Steve with a smile. It was an old game they had, this dance around presents. “Got you two presents, actually,” he said, jumping up to reach atop the kitchen cabinet – higher than Steve could reach. On his second jump he produced an orange, which he tossed to Steve. “Merry Christmas. Open yours.”

“You first.” Steve clutched his orange, all childish anticipation.

Bucky cut the string with his pocketknife and tore at the paper on his box, enjoying Steve’s wince at the waste of a perfectly good drawing surface. Under the lid was a Hershey bar resting on something wrapped in tissue paper. (“I got you two presents too,” Steve remarked.) Bucky opened the paper to see a pair of dress shoes. The shoes were clearly secondhand, but the soles had been replaced with brand new slick leather, and the uppers had been shined mirror-black.

Bucky cocked an eyebrow at Steve, who explained: “I couldn’t stand to watch you dance in your ratty old shoes anymore. You better burn up the dance floor with those.” At that, Bucky’s eyes lit up. As he’d grown beyond his awkward teens he’d discovered an innate talent for dancing, and also how easily a guy who was good at dancing could pick up beautiful girls.

Bucky’s present for Steve was a set of three pocket-sized sketchbooks bound in thin leather: red, green, and blue. The paper was thin but high-quality, making for hundreds of pages of drawing surface. Steve boggled. “This is too much, Buck.”

“Don’t worry about it, I got nobody better to spend it on,” Bucky said. “They’re for your pocket, so you can draw wherever you are.”

“Where’m I gonna go? We’ve never left Brooklyn.”

Bucky clapped Steve on the shoulder. “An artist like you will go places someday, you’ll see. I’ll still be in New York and you’ll send me drawings from Chicago and San Francisco and the Grand Canyon and, I don’t know, Paris and Berlin.”

“You’re a sap,” Steve said, but he threw one arm around Bucky’s shoulder for a quick hug. “Thanks, pal.” He did start carrying the blue sketchbook and a hard pencil in his pocket wherever he went, drawing whatever caught his fancy: parks, pigeons, architectural details, New Yorkers of all ages and types going about their lives.

Bucky wore his new dancing shoes to a jazz club on New Year’s Eve, inviting two girls and dragging Steve along with them. Steve managed one bumbling dance with his date before the tight, smoky space and jostling bodies became too much for him, and he wheezed his way off the dance floor to a high-top table on its edge.

He watched Bucky dance with both girls. Bucky twisted and spun to the driving bright noise of the brass band, his teeth flashing and his eyes bright. He radiated joy and vitality, clearing a space around him and his partner on the dance floor. Different girls spun into and out of that space, all of them locking eyes on Bucky, their painted lips parted with exertion and, it had to be said, lust. Steve didn’t feel any need to dance; watching Bucky was just as fun. Bucky could dance for both of them, and Steve was more than content to sit on the sidelines and take in the show.

Steve came down with the flu the next morning.

For three days, Steve was laid up, his body one long ache and fever making him sweat and shiver. He wandered in and out of painful sleep, occasionally noticing Bucky feeding him broth, wiping sweat from his brow, stripping him of cold, sodden clothes, wrapping him in a blanket and holding him to warm him up. On the fourth day, Steve was better enough that Bucky could return to work. On the fifth day, he was well enough to sit up in bed for a little while, but reading made his head ache. He floated, exhausted, drifting in and out of sleep.

Bucky came home with more of Mrs. Guttenberg’s chicken soup, bringing it into the bedroom. “If you can feed that to yourself, I’ll read the paper to you.” Too weary to talk back, Steve complied. His appetite was returning, and he slurped up the broth and dumplings greedily. As he ate, Bucky read to him about the national debt reaching a billion dollars, a lurid story of sister-murderers, a buried item about new anti-Jewish laws in Austria. Steve finished the soup and then set the pot down, looking over at Bucky.

Bucky sat on the edge of his bed, light from the bedside table lamp throwing his facial structure into sharp relief. It struck Steve that Bucky was beautiful, equal to any god immortalized in Roman marbles. Steve rolled over and reached under his bed for a sketchbook – the red one, not yet used -- and pencil. Bucky raised an eyebrow at him but kept reading. Steve sketched quickly, laying out the angles of the cheekbone, brow, jaw, nose, flat planes to describe the rough shape of his wavy hair, then held the pencil sideways to block in the shadows cast away from the light, under his brow, delineating his cheekbones, his full lips, the long (ridiculously long) and dark lashes that covered his eyes as they focused on the paper in his lap.

The lashes moved, and steel-blue eyes met Steve’s. “Why d’you keep lookin’ at me like that?” Bucky demanded.

“Just drawing,” Steve said.

“Can I see?”

Steve handed the sketchbook over. Bucky’s mouth fell open. “Shit, Steve, you make me look pretty.”

“My hand slipped,” Steve joked. Then, more seriously: “You don’t mind? If I draw you?”

“Nah,” Bucky said. “I don’t mind being appreciated for what God gave me.”

Steve threw his pillow at him.

Drawing Bucky became a habit. It helped that Bucky was a bit of an exhibitionist. He loved having people’s eyes on him; it made him puff his chest out, grin lopsidedly, tilt his head rakishly, flex, and strut.

## June 1940

Spring turned to summer. Bucky wore less around the apartment, and Steve could focus on details of his musculature, not just those of lithographs in a book but in a living, breathing model. On weekends Bucky posed for Steve so Steve could draw him as a baseball player, a boxer, an angel, a train conductor, a mechanic, a soldier. Whatever Steve’s imagination made of him – or whatever his advertising gigs required of him – Bucky was game.

They went out dancing. That is, Bucky danced, and Steve watched and drew him, the solid rectangle of his shoulders and arms in a foxtrot, the loose limbs and flying feet of his jitterbug. Steve drew the partners, too, but usually only suggested their outlines. The girls all looked the same to Steve, but Bucky was endlessly fun to draw, different every time.

“You’re getting better every day, I can’t stand how good you are at that,” Bucky remarked as he rifled through Steve’s sketchbook on their walk home.

“Thanks,” Steve said, ducking his head as he closed the book and put it in his shirt pocket.

Bucky looked up at the night sky, took a deep breath, then looked at Steve with a mischievous glint in his eye. “There’s one way you ain’t never drawn me yet,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“Those paintings and statues in the art museum. Those old masters, they made a lot of art of people without a stitch of clothes on.”

Steve looked away, embarrassed. “I wouldn’t ask you to do that for me, Buck.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “But I’m offering. That’s different.”

“Are you sure? You’d really do that?”

“We’ve been friends since we were six. There’s nothing we ain’t seen of each other. If it’ll make you better, I got no problem showing off a little.”

“You never have a problem showing off, you jerk,” Steve said.

“Guilty as charged,” Bucky laughed.

The next pages of the red sketchbook began to fill with nude Bucky. Steve carefully hid the book under his mattress whenever he wasn’t using it.

Steve’s drawings did get better. That fall, he got in to art school.

## December 1941

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Bucky was drafted early the next year. Steve tried to enlist, without success. When Bucky left for basic training, Steve felt bereft, without a friend and without a purpose.

What good was art when freedom was under attack? How could he sit at home when other men were fighting and dying abroad? How could they take Bucky and not him? What was he supposed to do? What did he have to offer the United States that would help in this war of good against evil? The answer turned out to be that he could draw posters and illustrate pamphlets for the Office of War Information, but that still didn’t seem like enough. His artist hands itched to ball up and throw punches.

Steve’s body wasn’t so great, but he knew he had a brain. He visited the public library and pulled out books on military strategy and tactics, reading them cover to cover, diagramming historic battles in his green-bound sketchbook, buying his own used copies of the books that gave him the deepest insights. He could see the battlefields in his fertile imagination, turning topographic maps into three-dimensional landscapes, overlaying troop movements, figuring out vantage points and marching routes and places where supply lines would be vulnerable to attack. He read books by military leaders ancient and modern about how they succeeded, how they planned, and how they motivated battle-worn troops to overcome heavy odds.

Steve wrote Bucky long letters about notable historic military campaigns, illustrating them with quick sketches. Bucky wrote Steve about the discomforts of barracks life, boasted about his successes on the firing range, mentioned offhandedly his placement into officer training. He was promoted to corporal, then sergeant.

Steve missed Bucky a lot, and it made him sappy in his letters. _It’s about time somebody recognized how smart and capable you are. You deserve all of it. I’m real proud of you, Buck_, he wrote.

Steve _was_ proud, but was anguished about the increasing separation between him and Bucky. Bucky was made to be a soldier, Steve thought: his strong, disciplined body, his sharp mind (less disciplined, but creative enough in street fights to help him win or escape despite heavy odds), his confidence and bravery.

Steve didn’t know what to do but to keep trying to follow Bucky to the war. Somebody at some recruiting office would see past his physical deficiency, see the worth in him, see that what he lacked in strength he made up for in determination and preparation.

None of it was good enough. He tried three more times and they still wouldn’t take him.

## June 1942

Bucky came back from training, waiting in New York for his orders. Steve thought he was heartbreakingly good-looking in his crisp uniform, telling lively and funny stories about escapades in the Army. He was everything Steve wished he could be. Girls adored him even more than before. Steve wasn’t mad about the girls, but had a hard time preventing his jealousy from coming out as cruel responses to Bucky’s playful banter.

Sketching blunted the sharp edges of his mood. In the red sketchbook, Steve drew Bucky in the uniform with the sergeant’s stripes, his hat at a probably-not-regulation angle. Steve drew him standing tall, looking like a hero.

Steve took his frustration and jealousy out on assholes who failed to live up to Steve’s ideals of behavior, and the assholes responded by beating the stuffing out of Steve. Exasperated by Steve’s constant fights and losses, Bucky agreed to take Steve to Goldie’s gym to teach him how to box.

It didn’t go too well at first, with Steve questioning everything Bucky told him to do. “A jump rope? Are you kidding me? ‘m not a little girl.”

“Every boxer jumps rope. It helps you last longer in the ring and makes you faster and gets your timing right when you punch. Now follow my pace and go as long as you can.”

Bucky started jumping, the rope swishing around him in a perfect circle, his body straight, breathing through his nose. Steve tried to follow, got tangled, started over, and managed to establish a sloppier, slower pace. He had to quit after less than a minute, gasping.

“Do you need me to get your inhaler?” Bucky asked, concerned.

Steve waved him off irritably. “Not – an attack – just can’t – catch my breath.” He sank to a bench.

“Then catch it and get back up and jump rope another minute.” Bucky was still jumping and wasn’t even winded, it wasn’t fair. Steve got up and tried again as Bucky put down the rope and continued his warmup with some shadowboxing. Steve managed another minute of jump roping with a lot of stops and starts, then watched Bucky and tried to mimic his movement.

“No, Steve, you’re not ready for that yet. Let’s start with your stance, like this.” Bucky spent ten minutes fine-tuning how Steve stood, hassling him to widen his stance and bend his knees and keep his weight on the balls of his feet. “You gotta return to this stance every time you do anything – every time you take a step.” And then he started to teach Steve how to drag-step, keeping his feet on the ground and his body low.

Steve didn’t know how just standing and taking little steps could be so exhausting. “When are we going to get to the punching?”

“Dummy, this is part of the punching. Your punches can’t be any good at all if you don’t have your legs underneath you. Plus, three-quarters of boxing is _not getting punched_. The sooner you get that into your hard head, the less work I’ll have to do bandaging it up. Now quit bellyaching, you’re making me regret bringing you here.”

Steve wanted to sass Bucky back but it had never occurred to him before that boxers had to learn about how to avoid getting hit, and he felt like an idiot, so he shut up and worked with Bucky until he really couldn’t stand up anymore.

They returned to the gym every weekday, and it kept Steve out of trouble. Until he got classified 4F for the fourth time and went to a movie to try to escape his disappointment. He ran into a smart-mouthed guy in a movie theater, a guy who turned out to be really good both at punching and not getting punched.

“Sometimes I think you like getting punched,” Bucky said, shaking his head at his friend, taking him to the Stark Expo as a distraction.

Bucky just didn’t understand, Steve thought. He didn’t like getting punched, no. He didn’t even like fighting. He just didn’t like bullies. He thought somebody needed to stand up against them, and it would be hypocrisy to think that and then not be the one to do the standing up. He said as much to Dr. Erskine, and that’s what got him into Project Rebirth.

He would report in the morning, the same day Bucky shipped off. Steve returned to his apartment and waited up for Bucky, hoping he would come back before sunrise. It was warm and moonless and he sat out on the fire escape, looking at the stars and wondering if there were soldiers in Europe looking up at the same stars at the same time. Whether he himself would end up seeing the same stars from another country, in Europe or Africa or the Pacific.

Bucky came stumbling in well after midnight, smelling like cigarettes and sex. He peeled off his hat, coat, and shirt, lit another cigarette, and joined Steve on the fire escape.

“Good date?” Steve asked.

Bucky took a long drag on the cigarette and looked down. “They told me they wanted to send me off properly.”

Steve shook his head, then processed what Bucky had said. “Wait. _They?_” Bucky just looked at him under heavy-lidded eyes and smiled. “Christ, you’re terrible,” Steve said, but he was laughing.

Bucky and Steve stayed on the fire escape for the rest of the night, talking about nothing and everything. Steve knew Bucky would worry if he told him about his successful enlistment, so he didn’t. As the sky began to show signs of encroaching dawn, they fell into their cots for a couple of hours of sleep, and then it was time to get up and say goodbye. Steve hardly knew what to say, but around the lump in his throat he tried to get his friend to smile. Then Bucky hugged him, and then he was giving a jaunty salute, and then he was gone. Steve stood for a minute, staring at the closed door, trying to fix the memory of Bucky’s facial expressions in his mind.

A few minutes later, Steve threw his military strategy books and sketching materials into a duffel, packed his toiletries, and carefully locked up the apartment. It was time to face the future. Time to go to war.


	2. Camp Lehigh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The experiment worked, but Erskine is dead. Steve comes to terms with his new body, and is determined to become an officer in fact, not just in name.

## August 1942: Steve

Project Rebirth was in chaos after Erskine’s murder. After debriefing Steve, Colonel Phillips sat back and considered him. “I don’t have time for you right now,” he said. “I have an investigation to run.”

“Sir. There must be something I can do to help.”

Phillips sighed. “You’re an unknown quantity. Your ‘help’ isn’t useful. For now, get back to the base and get that new body of yours kitted out, and wait for further orders. I’m not sure what to do with you yet, but you don’t belong with the enlisted men anymore. Congratulations, you’re a lieutenant.” He beckoned another lieutenant over, giving terse orders, delegating Steve away. “You’re both dismissed.”

The lieutenant was a wiry redhead, young, maybe in his mid-twenties. “It’s good to meet you, Rogers. I’m Bruce Deacon.” They collected the small bag Steve had brought with him and Deacon arranged for a jeep and driver to take them back Camp Lehigh in New Jersey.

“First stop’s the quartermaster,” Deacon said as they rode in the back of the jeep. “We need to get you new uniforms, and boots that fit, and a bunk.”

“I’m looking forward to that,” Steve said, wincing. He’d chased down the Hydra agent barefoot; his feet still had some healing cuts, and the shoes they’d scrounged at the SSR facility for him were a tight squeeze.

Things were quiet for a while. Steve wondered what it meant that he’d been made an officer. “Have you worked for Colonel Phillips long?” he asked Deacon.

“Two years now. He’s been an excellent commanding officer.”

“What are your responsibilities for him, as a lieutenant?”

“It’s mostly training and managing troops, carrying out organizational work for the colonel. But…” He paused and considered Steve for a moment. “I don’t think that’s what he expects you to do.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you don’t have officer training.”

“I’ve studied a lot of military history and strategy.”

“No matter how much you read, you can’t teach yourself a West Point degree.”

Steve felt Deacon’s judgment on him. Steve returned his gaze, his expression cool. “Why do you think the colonel promoted me?” he asked.

“I can’t speak for him of course. It will help him keep a closer eye on you, and give you private quarters.”

There was an awkward break in conversation, as rural New Jersey rolled by. Steve felt small again. The corner of his mouth twitched. Feeling small had never stopped him before, and it wouldn’t stop him now. He’d learn what he needed to, and would be the best damn lieutenant the army had ever seen.

To Deacon, he asked: “What facilities are there for officers at the base?” Happy for the change in subject, Deacon sketched out a rough map, tore the page out of his notebook, and handed it to Steve, along with recommendations for food to eat and to avoid in the officer’s mess, and which officers not to play poker with. The officers’ facilities were mostly on the opposite side of the base from the library, which served both officers and enlisted men. Steve would have to figure out how and when he could get over there, and what he needed to study. Maybe he could find someone to train him up.

Eventually they pulled in to the base. It didn’t take long for the quartermaster to outfit him with uniforms, boots, and other kit, but getting quarters issued to him appeared to require a great deal of wrangling. Finally Deacon took him aside. “We’ll work this out, but Masten always puts up a fuss about giving up his precious rooms. Why don’t you familiarize yourself with the officers’ facilities and we’ll meet up for dinner at 1930. I’ll have your kit taken up to your quarters whenever Masten coughs up a key.”

Steve felt awkward again at dinner, too ravenous to be interested in conversation with officers who were probably judging him. Fortunately the mess was relatively empty, with many of the officers away on training maneuvers. He downed a big plate of roast beef and potatoes and succotash and still felt hungry. Sheepishly, he asked the server if it was possible to get a second serving. “Well, you’re a growing boy,” she chuckled as she brought him another plate. _You have no idea,_ Steve thought.

After dinner, Deacon finally deposited him in an empty room in the bachelor officers’ quarters. It wasn’t big but there was room for a narrow bunk, a freestanding wardrobe with a skinny mirror on one door, a tiny table with a lamp, and a chair; a communal bathroom was down the hall. Steve thanked him, and Deacon shook his hand and left.

Steve shut the door.

_Now what?_ He thought.

The weight of the day suddenly fell on him. It felt like it’d lasted a hundred years. This morning, Steve Rogers been just another kid from Brooklyn, 95 pounds dripping wet. Now, he was more than a foot taller and twice as massive and he’d seen two men die (dead, Abraham Erskine was _dead_, and Steve felt Erskine’s finger poking him in the chest again) and he was a lieutenant in the United States Army and he had no orders and nothing to do.

He stepped to the wardrobe and contemplated himself in the mirror. He had to shift from side to side to see his whole self in it – _and ain’t that something else_. He took off his uniform coat and shirt and drew his singlet over his head and contemplated the strange body in front of him, drawing a hand over his pecs and abs, feeling their unfamiliar hardness. The motion of his own shoulder caught his eye (_how can I see my own shoulders with my own eyes when I’m looking straight ahead, oh my god_) and he looked down and it was so weird to raise his hand and see at a meaty arm that was hanging off his body that couldn’t possibly be his, and yet was. He splayed his fingers and formed a fist and watched the thick tendons play across the back of his forearm, saw the flexor muscles bulging near his elbow. It was like the pages of _Atlas of Anatomy for Artists_ had come to life and slid under his skin.

He looked back at the mirror and had the sudden feeling that his old body was still there under all the new muscle, that the new muscle might slough away like the layers of a rotting onion, and then Steve was gasping for breath and had to look away from the mirror so he couldn’t see himself anymore and he threw open the window sash to lean out and draw in great draughts of humid August air.

It was like having an asthma attack, but not; there was no problem with his lungs, he just couldn’t stop his rapid breathing. The memory of his childhood asthma conjured a memory of Bucky, holding him upright, counting with him, coaching him to breathe in, and out, slowly. Steve closed his eyes and imagined Bucky’s voice, and slowed himself down until he was breathing in, two, three, slowly, holding it, breathing out, two, three, four. After a few minutes, he regained control.

Calmer now, Steve noticed that breathing – just breathing – actually felt fantastic. There was so much room in his lungs. Breathing in, he felt his broad new chest inflating like a furnace bellows, the air rushing down his throat. Breathing out, squeezing his stomach, he pushed out enough air to fill a dozen balloons. No fluid in his lungs, no pain in his ribs, no frog in his throat, nothing stuck in his sinuses, no limit to how deeply he could inhale. Breathing had never felt so good in his miserably sick life. He could get used to this.

_I’d better get used to this_, he thought, ruefully. _There’s no going back. And no more Erskine to tell me what to expect._

He replayed the morning’s desperate chase in his head. Although it was bracketed by the awful deaths of Erskine and the Hydra agent, the chase had been pretty amazing. Running so fast and without labor – leaping from car to car – the instincts that had driven him, the reactions that had made him duck and jump and raise a car door like a shield and dive in the river and chase down a futuristic submarine with nothing but his arms and legs – it had been so exciting to be in a body that could do all that, without thought. He wondered what more he could do if he actually trained, how much farther he could jump, how much faster he could swim, what his limits were. If he had limits.

At this thought, his purpose crystallized. Without Erskine in the picture, there was nobody left who had any idea what this new body of his could do. It was up to Steve to figure that out, and to help the army make it into the best soldier they had, brawn and brains. Then he could go fight, and help end the war, and bring home all those boys like Bucky who should be in factories and offices and dance halls and homes, not in firefights.

But Steve couldn’t get started until morning. He bustled about his room, putting things away in the wardrobe, found the bathroom, and got ready for bed. He turned off the lamp and lay down on the bunk, not bothering to pull up the sheet. Even after dark, it felt too hot; his body seemed to run like a furnace. But he also didn’t seem to sweat much. So many differences between this night and this morning.

Outside, the bugler played Taps. He shut his eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. He wished this room held Bucky in it so they could talk after dark, the way they had since they were little. He ached to talk to Bucky, to share this extraordinary day. He smiled in the dark, imagining what Bucky would make of his transformation. Steve couldn’t wait to show him. Maybe Steve would be deployed somewhere where he could meet up with Bucky, wherever his friend wound up in the European theater.

His body felt weird atop the bed. He didn’t sink into the center like he used to, because he was nearly as broad as the mattress. He felt tense. He realized that he felt better when he was active, able to just intuit his way through his movement. Quiet gave him an odd anxiety, feeling like he was standing outside himself, observing himself like a scientific specimen, not sure what he was.

In the dark, he lifted his hand to his face. That movement felt normal. His hands were the same size they’d been before the serum, just more muscular; they felt as sensitive and dexterous as they’d been this morning when he was a skinny artist. He drew his hand down his face and felt his unfamiliar jawline. He ran his hands over his chest, his arms, touching the outlines of his muscles, probing the thick veins that lay atop them, just under the skin. He named the muscles as he felt them, imagining the pages of the anatomy book, full of awe at how he now possessed all of them, could feel them shifting against each other as he tensed and relaxed his arms and chest. He laughed aloud as he felt his own pecs. Ridiculous, and amazing.

He sat up to explore his legs in the same way. In the dark, he didn’t have the same sense of alienation he had when looking in the mirror. His hands met his new outlines and built their new shapes in his mind. Counterintuitively, his limbs felt softer than they had before – it’d been all bones before, now it was firm but yielding muscle. It felt good to massage the muscles, rubbing across the fibers. Everything about this body felt good. Really good. So good, in fact, that he was getting aroused. He lay back down in bed and wrapped his hand around his cock, finding that feeling to be comfortingly familiar – if his hand had grown a little, well, everything seemed to have grown proportionally. He stroked himself, and his skin felt alight. He’d never been so hard, everything about him was hard as his muscles tensed and he came with a searing bolt of pleasure. As his breathing slowed, he fell asleep.

He was wide awake at first light. He went for a run around the base, tearing up the circuit that had nearly killed him in basic, easily running five times around the three-mile loop in under an hour.

If just breathing had been fantastic, running was a religious experience. He could feel all his corded muscle fibers, contracting and stretching like tightly coiled springs, working together in rhythm with the pounding of his feet. Despite his speed, his breath was slow and even, _in_ two three four, _out_ six seven eight with his footsteps, and it became the beat of a jazzy tune in his head. It wasn’t dancing, but the flow and rhythm of his body with the beat of his feet and breath felt something like the same, and he was giddy with the sheer joy of it, watching the landscape streak by.

Reveille sounded as he returned to quarters. Showering was weird – so much more skin to wash. As he dressed, he looked out the window at the bustling activity of the base rousing for another day of training and work. He consumed a truly enormous breakfast – four eggs over a mountain of corned beef hash, and truth be told, he still felt like he could eat more, but it was already embarrassing. He drank a quart of milk instead.

Steve visited the base headquarters to see if there were any orders for him yet. There weren’t, but Colonel Phillips was supposed to be returning soon. He tried to visit the library, but he found it was only open for a few hours after the end of the duty day; he couldn’t get in yet. At loose ends, he returned to his quarters and sketched some of the scenes from the base, then drew a portrait of Abraham Erskine, and one of Bucky. Maybe later he’d see if he could find some tacks so he could pin them to the wall.

Late in the morning, Colonel Phillips and Agent Carter rolled into the base in front of an entourage of cargo trucks. One long flatbed held something hidden under a canvas shroud. The Hydra submarine, Steve realized. A limousine pulled up, and Howard Stark jumped out of the back, issuing directions for moving the sinister boat into a secured and guarded machine shop for his investigation.

Steve walked up to the Colonel and saluted. The older man’s eyes briefly flicked up and down his height. Phillips smiled tightly. “You finally look like a soldier. It’s a pity Erskine won’t ever make more of you.” Steve had no response to that. Phillips jerked his head. “Go with Carter, she’ll tell you what to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Phillips stomped off. Carter stood by, holding a thick dossier in her hands. “Lieutenant Rogers, I’m glad to see you. How are you feeling this morning?”

Steve took a deep breath and grinned. “Never better. Ready to work.”

Carter smiled too, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m glad to hear it. We do have work to do. Prior to his death, Dr. Erskine developed a test protocol to follow your response to the admission of the serum. That much of his experiment we will be able to complete without him present.” She paused and looked down at the dossier, running a thumb across its cover. “We’ll follow the plans with the help of his assistant.”

Still not clear what he’d do after that, then, but at least it was something constructive, for now. “What do the tests entail?” Steve asked.

“We’ll run you through the same physical and cognitive challenges you performed when you arrived, and repeat some in the coming days, to see if your adaptation changes over time. We’ll need to take a lot of samples for Project Rebirth technicians to analyze, and also to make sure you are continuing to handle the transition well. Dr. Erskine predicted that the demands of your metabolism will have increased. There are nutritionists tasked with determining your nutritional requirements, to make sure you’re properly outfitted in the field.”

“Will the tests take all day?”

“No, I should think not. You’ll have some leisure time. Why?”

Steve clenched his teeth, a little embarrassed. “I’m a lieutenant now. Officers are educated. I’ve only gone to art school. Is there – what do I need to study to be able to command troops and keep them from getting killed?”

Carter smiled. “That’s a good question. I can find someone to help you with that.”

The tests were sometimes quite fun. Steve ran the obstacle course multiple times in a row, lapping exhausted recruits who muttered at the first lap but then hooted and hollered at Steve as he passed by again, redoubling their efforts in his wake. He spent enough time on the gun range to demonstrate newfound accuracy, and lobbed dummy grenades at distant targets with precision, both right- and left-handed.

Once, the SSR team tried to test the limits of Steve’s deadlifting capacity. They ran out of room to add weights on the bar and Steve was still going strong, so two men grabbed the ends of the bar and Steve lifted the whole shebang, leaving the men’s feet dangling. Everyone present laughed, Steve most of all. Exerting his strength, really testing himself, made him feel on top of the world.

He wasn’t just fast and strong, he was newly agile, both mentally and physically. The serum seemed to have given him eidetic recall. He aced the cognitive batteries. Carter located an officer who’d taught at West Point, and cajoled a reading list and some lecture notes out of him. Steve took the list to the base library and began devouring books, committing them to memory.

It wasn’t enough on its own, he knew. He understood that he needed discussion with experts to help him solidify the knowledge, and battlefield experience beyond that. But at least he wouldn’t be caught flat-footed again, he thought. Then he smiled at the memory of Bucky shouting at him not to flatten his feet while boxing. _If you could only see me now, Buck_, he thought.

He put off writing to Bucky, not sure how to explain everything that had happened to him.

The sampling wasn’t so fun. They drew vial after vial of blood out of him every day, before breakfast and dinner, and swabbed his cheek and nasal passages once daily. They weighed every item of food before he ate it, and most miserably, they collected all his urine and stool and weighed and tested that in order to understand his metabolism. Steve didn’t envy the lab workers that job, but they were all professional and it became a routine, if unpleasant, process.

Beyond all the testing, it took Steve a lot of work just to eat enough. The nutritionists’ early estimate was that he required five thousand calories on a rest day, and perhaps double that if he was really exerting himself. Privately, Steve thought he wasn’t being truly tested to his limits, but he wasn’t going to tell the scientists that.

The nutritionists thought they were out of Steve’s earshot when they discussed a possible future long-term test of calorie deprivation to see how his serum-assisted metabolism responded. Steve’s enhanced hearing allowed him to pick up their conversation, and he was grateful he’d be more valuable as a soldier than a test subject so he wouldn’t have to go through with their sadistic notions.

He could deal with all the testing and sampling because it was all part of Erskine’s plan, and Steve respected Erskine, and he could see that it was important to follow the plan through. Once the plans had run their course, though, Steve would be ready to go to war.

Two weeks after the serum, Carter arranged a meeting with him and Phillips to discuss the next steps. But when they arrived, Phillips said there was nothing to discuss. “As of this morning, the SSR’s been retasked,” Phillips said. They were taking the fight to Hydra. Steve wasn’t part of Phillips’ plans anymore. Phillips ordered Steve to Alamogordo to continue being a lab animal.

Steve wanted to punch something.

That was his state of mind when Senator Brandt approached him and threw an arm over his shoulder. “Son, do you want to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war?”

“Sir, that’s all I want.”

“Then congratulations. You just got promoted.” He motioned to an aide, who brought over a manila folder. Brandt pulled a drawing from it, a stylized view of a man in a red, white, and blue costume. “CAPTAIN AMERICA,” it said in block letters at the bottom.

“The creatives at the Office of Wartime Information have come up with a brilliant plan…” Brandt began. A character, based loosely on Steve, springboarding off the notoriety he’d won on the day of Erskine’s murder. Comic books, movies, a traveling show, with Steve as the embodiment of all-Americanness, all to sell war bonds and inspire more men to enlist.

Brandt was a convincing salesman. It wasn’t going to war, but that path was barred to Steve for now. It felt like a waste of his potential, but Steve knew that wars were fought on more than one kind of battlefield, and he trusted his senator implicitly. In fact, he was honored to be directly asked by an actual senator to serve in any capacity.

At least that’s what he tried to tell himself. That night in the officers’ mess, Steve chewed through dinner as though by doing it he could chew through Nazi battalions. It took him a moment to register that Agent Carter had entered and now stood across the table from him.

“Steve.”

Steve looked up at her, then looked away, his jaw working. He had the feeling this conversation wasn’t going to go well. “Agent Carter.”

“Steve, don’t do this. Don’t go with Senator Brandt’s publicity operation. You were meant for better things.”

“I am, but I’m not being given the option, am I?” Steve asked, bitterly.

“I think you should go to New Mexico. We still have the potential to achieve Erskine’s vision, and then—“

“No,” Steve cut her off.

“Steve, we could—“

“No. I won’t be a lab rat. I need to act. I need to make a difference. You may never figure out what Erskine did and I’ll be there for years getting poked for blood and pissing in a cup while men are dying over there.”

“But—“

“I have to do something to _win this war_. Right now, it looks like the best way for me to do that is to go with Brandt.”

Carter’s face firmed into a steely glare. “I think you’re making the wrong decision.”

“I don’t.”

They stared at each other. It was Carter who broke eye contact first, but it didn’t feel like a victory to Steve. She took her leave, disapproval in every line of her. He grimly finished his 2,000-calorie dinner and then dutifully reported to the SSR lab to produce his final samples.

Back in his quarters, he felt unsettled and couldn’t focus on his reading. He wondered what Bucky was doing. He sighed. It was time to stop procrastinating. He pulled out stationery and his fountain pen.

_11 August 1942  
Camp Lehigh, NJ_

_Dear Buck,_

_I hope you’re doing all right over in jolly old England. A lot has happened here since you shipped out. You’re going to be mad at me but it’s all turned out good, I swear, and you don’t need to worry about anything, so don’t get bent out of shape when I tell you that I enlisted and finally got classified 1A. It wasn’t for the regular army though. It was for a special program that used an experimental medicine to treat guys like me, make them fit enough to serve. The long and the short of it is that it worked on me, and I’m a lot stronger now. _

Steve examined the paragraph. It was technically true, mostly, and would probably make it past the censors.

_I finished basic training already and you’re not going to believe this but they promoted me to captain, with bars on my shoulders and everything._

Steve paused. There really wasn’t any way Bucky was going to believe this sentence. He’d know something weird was up. Steve thought about crossing it out and not mentioning it, but his rank was in his military address; he had to tell Bucky. He thought about trying to explain more but decided it wouldn’t make any sense no matter how many words he used. He’d just push on through.

_I took a weekend furlough and moved us out of the apartment. I gave our dishes to Mrs. Gutenberg. I got a couple bucks for the furniture and donated our worn clothes to the parish. I held on to your best stuff – there’s room in my trunk. I’ll take good care of your dancing shoes._

Even with all of his and Bucky’s worldly possessions in it, the steamer trunk he warranted as a captain was still half empty. That was partly because not a stitch of Steve’s old clothing fit him anymore, but he wouldn’t mention that to Bucky.

_You’ll be glad to hear they’re not sending me to combat, at least not right away. I’ve actually been assigned to the USO. I’ll be working in New York for a couple of months and then accompanying them on a tour. I’ll send you the itinerary when I get it. You were right when you gave me those sketchbooks, I’ll be sending you sketches from cities all over the USA. If the tour goes well they may even send us to Europe to cheer up the troops. Don’t win the war before I get there._

_I wish you were here, you big jerk. Or that I was there. I could order you around, I outrank you now. I know you’d love that._

_Write me so I know you’re okay._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Steve_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • [Libraries during the war](https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/07/04/418840245/when-americas-librarians-went-to-war)  
• [Some contemporary pics of basic training of a guy who becomes a sergeant](https://mashable.com/2017/05/27/training-of-george-camblair/)  
• I’ve learned that trying to make the MCU timeline match any kind of sensible timeline for troop movements in WWII is a losing battle (har har). I’m not going to bother. It is what it is.  
• I also decided not to bother how to figure out military mail worked. I’m going to assume that addresses involve military divisions rather than physical locations for security reasons and that there were bottlenecks in the process and otherwise not deal.  
• After this, there would presumably be some period where it took time to develop the Captain America character and the USO show. It might be an interesting topic for a future side project but I think I can skip straight to Azzano.


	3. Italy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The clearing’s just half a mile down the road. Are you okay to keep walking that far?” Steve asked quietly.
> 
> “Buddy, I’d follow you anywhere right now,” Bucky said. “Goddamn. I can’t believe you’re here. And that you’re—“ he gestured vaguely at Steve. “Are we dead?”
> 
> It seemed like a genuine question. It made Steve’s heart hurt. He threw an arm across Bucky’s shoulders, the other hand to his cheek. “No, Buck. This is real. We need to go, find the rest of the troops.”
> 
> Bucky looked at him, clearly unconvinced. But he said “Okay, pal,” and turned to walk down the road.

#    


## November 1943: Azzano

Steve and Bucky escaped the Hydra factory to find that the remaining Hydra troops – and there weren’t many – were in disarray, jumping into tanks and trucks and beating a chaotic retreat.

“We need weapons,” Bucky said. “Cover me while I do a little looting.”

Steve spotted a pile of bodies near a truck. “Over here.” Bucky rummaged among them and came up with a handgun for each of them, a wicked-looking knife, and a submachine gun. He offered the last one to Steve, but Steve said “I can’t use two-handed weapons, with this.” He tapped his shield.

“All right,” Bucky said. “Oh, hey, these look nice.” He picked up a heavy black binocular case. “Zeiss. The Nazis make much better optics than the Americans. I’ll keep these.”

“Okay, enough, let’s go. There’s a lot of open ground between here and the road out. I’ll take point, you cover my six.” But they reached the gate without incident. All the Hydra agents seemed to be dead or fled.

“The clearing’s just half a mile down the road. Are you okay to keep walking that far?” Steve asked quietly.

“Buddy, I’d follow you anywhere right now,” Bucky said. “Goddamn. I can’t believe you’re here. And that you’re—“ he gestured vaguely at Steve. “Are we dead?”

It seemed like a genuine question. It made Steve’s heart hurt. He threw an arm across Bucky’s shoulders, the other hand to his cheek. “No, Buck. This is real. We need to go, find the rest of the troops.”

Bucky looked at him, clearly unconvinced. But he said “Okay, pal,” and turned to walk down the road.

They found the clearing. The escapees had set up a perimeter already, protecting the wounded. Steve saw a red-capped man walking from watch to watch. “Captain,” the man said as Steve and Bucky approached. “I’m Major James Montgomery Falsworth of Her Majesty’s Third Independent Parachute Brigade. I believe I’m the highest-ranking officer among the freed prisoners. But these men are mostly American and should be commanded by an American officer.”

While he was talking, a huge man in a bowler hat ran up and hugged Bucky, almost knocking him over. A few other members of the 107th followed him, quietly but happily reuniting with their brother-in-arms.

“Thank you, Major. You set up the perimeter?”

“Yes. I employed only men from the 107th who knew each other. I can’t be certain there aren’t Hydra spies among the other men.”

Steve nodded. “Good plan. We need to gather supplies from the Hydra base before we make for the front.”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea where we are, Captain. They brought me here from the coast. How far are we from allied forces?”

“About thirty miles, as the crow flies. I think about forty miles by the most direct roads.”

Falsworth pressed his lips together. “That’s a long walk, and we have wounded men.”

“Yes. We’ll need trucks, and I want to bring back at least one of those Hydra tanks for our guys to investigate.”

“Perhaps two tanks as forward and rear guard, and two trucks for transport. That should be a tight enough group that we can defend it with the men we have.”

“Good. What can you tell me about the men?”

“About seventy remaining members of the 107th. The rest, a little more than a hundred, are a mixed bag. Very few officers; Hydra interrogation is usually fatal. Physical condition isn’t too bad. Unlike the Nazis, Hydra feeds their prison workers enough to sustain them. Thank God for small blessings.”

They passed word among the men for the unwounded to gather. About a hundred ranged around Steve, Bucky, and Falsworth. Pitching his voice to carry no farther than the edge of the clearing, Steve said: “I’m taking twenty men back to the base. We need supplies and to look for wounded. I need four officers.”

A few men stepped forward, including the man in the bowler hat. “I’ll go,” Bucky said.

“The hell you will. You’ll stay here.”

“No, Steve. Don’t. Don’t. I need to stay with you,” he said in a harsh whisper.

Steve looked at him, saw a wild expression in his eyes. He wanted Bucky to be safe. Maybe Bucky would be safer with him. “All right. You can stay with me, but you’re not leading a squad.”

“Fine.”

Steve selected four officers who looked fresh, and huddled with them. Bucky’s friend was Sergeant Dugan; there were also two corporals from the 107th and a British lieutenant. Steve filled them in on the mission: select four men for a squad, return to the base, look for food, medical supplies, water, packs, Hydra weapons, anything that looked technologically unusual. Look for wounded. Dugan and the lieutenant were to return with tanks. The corporals should find well-fueled trucks and collect the loot and wounded.

“There’s one more thing they should do,” Bucky said. “Kill anybody who can’t be saved.”

“What?” Steve asked.

“He’s right,” Dugan said.

“That’s—“ Steve started.

“Humane,” Bucky said firmly.

Steve grimaced. “All right. Let’s be fast. We only have about four hours until sunrise and I want to be moving toward the front line by then. Major Falsworth, you have command here until we return.”

“Good luck, Captain.”

The officers collected their squads and armed themselves. Soon the group was on its way back to the base. Steve walked in the middle with Bucky, trusting the ex-prisoners to be on guard.

Steve considered Bucky, wishing he’d stayed behind. Bucky looked awful. His eyes were sunken, his face bruised. There was a healing cut on his cheekbone. Unlike the rest of the prisoners, whose beards documented the weeks or months they’d been in captivity, Bucky had been recently shaven and his hair cut. The barbering had evidently not been gentle; there were razor nicks on his face and scalp. He was pale and haggard, and favoring his right leg, walking in the careful way that meant pain everywhere. He looked ready to puke.

“Bucky, are you sure you’re well enough to—“

“Don’t say it, Steve. I’m sticking by you.”

Steve reached out, rested a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Bucky’s bones. “What did they do to you, Bucky?”

Bucky clenched his jaw. “Don’t want to talk about it now,” he growled. Steve dropped his hand, feeling helpless.

Bucky looked over at him. “Tell me what really happened to you. ‘Medical treatment,’ my ass.” Steve told him an abbreviated version of the Project Rebirth story, and Bucky punched him in the shoulder. “I let you out of my sight for one day and you volunteered for a goddamn science experiment?”

“It got me to the war, and that’s all I wanted,” Steve said. “Well, it got me to the war eventually.” He dreaded telling Bucky about the USO show. He hoped they’d pack up and leave before he got back to the SSR division. He realized, ruefully, that he’d rather confront a Hydra base alone than return to the USO show. “And it really did fix everything that was wrong with me. I feel amazing, and now I can do all the things I always wanted to do. Like protect you, for once.” That earned him a scoffing laugh from Bucky, but a little bit of a smile stayed on his face.

They reached the base. The four squads identified territories, then separated and headed for trucks and bodies. Steve walked where he could see all four groups working. Bucky stayed at his back, watching in the other direction. So good to fall into that pattern again, the two of them ready to take on the world. Steve felt like Bucky’s need to guard him was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

A tank engine roared and the machine rumbled toward Steve’s position, its gun pointed away from Steve and at the Hydra base. One of the soldiers waved from its turret: friendly. It stopped a short distance away, and Dugan climbed out and saluted Steve, then he went to rejoin his squad where they were looting bodies. Steve climbed to the top of the turret and stood watch from it.

“You’re making a hell of a target out of yourself, Steve,” Bucky said.

“Better me than them,” he replied.

“You’re never going to stop looking for fights, are you?”

“Nope,” Steve answered with a grin.

There were quite a lot of cargo trucks still at the base. One was full of tinned rations, plenty to feed the two hundred troops for five or six days, more than enough time for the walk back, Steve hoped. He directed that squad to move the boxes a little to make a flat platform for the wounded, then they loaded Hydra weapons on top. That left the other truck to fill, and they worked as quickly as possible.

“That’s enough. Let’s move out. Better not to hang around here,” Steve said.

There were a couple of living Hydra soldiers whose throats were summarily slit. They hadn’t found any wounded ex-prisoners who still lived. There’d only been a dozen or so bodies identifiable as formerly imprisioned soldiers. One by one, the officers handed Steve the dog tags of the dead men. They were light in his hand. Steve felt angry at Hydra, and at himself.

“You couldn’t have done better than you did, Steve,” Bucky said softly. “They died fighting for their freedom, and you got two hundred of us out.” It wasn’t much consolation.

It took more than three days to walk to safety. It would be better to move at night, but the Moon was just past new and not providing them much help. Instead, they walked for a few hours around dusk and dawn, keeping the vehicles on the road but hiding as many of the men as they could in the shadowed forest floor on the flanks. During the day, planes sometimes loomed overhead, sending the troops running for cover. Some of the planes were friendly – Bucky called out the identifying marks he could see using the looted binoculars – but they hid the tanks and trucks from view regardless whenever there was a distant buzz of airplane engines.

Steve felt he had to be awake and in command for the whole drive, because of the map of the terrain he held in his head, and because he felt responsible for the safety of the troops. He slept fitfully during the daytime stops, and kept watch all night.

Bucky continued to stick to him like glue. One night Steve talked Bucky into trying to sleep instead of watch. Bucky woke the camp an hour later with a shrieking nightmare. He didn’t sleep at night after that, but when they stopped to hide under the trees midday, he and Steve rested against each other and napped while Falsworth held the watch.

Despite the lack of sleep and punishing walk, Bucky seemed to be healing strangely fast. The razor nicks were gone from his face by the second day, and his limp also vanished. The healing didn’t reach his sunken, bruised eyes, however.

Steve made a point of meeting and talking with all the rescued prisoners, making fast friends with a few of them. As anxiety-inducing as the walk through enemy territory was, Steve felt at last that he was where he belonged, and that these were the people he wanted around him. All he needed was to help Bucky heal.

Steve waited until the morning of November 7, when it seemed likely they were going to make it safely back to the American base, to tell Bucky about the USO show. Bucky didn’t believe him until he unzipped his jacket to show the costume. Bucky hassled the hell out of him but it was good to hear his laugh.

Steve felt ready to burst with pride when he walked at the head of the rescued troops through the gates. He’d done it. He’d destroyed a significant Hydra base and saved hundreds of lives. And Bucky. With Carter and Stark’s help, he’d gotten where he needed to be. He’d accept any punishment the colonel dished out, and do it all again in a heartbeat, because he knew he’d proven what he was capable of.

So of course Bucky had to puncture his puffed-up chest by shouting “Hey! Let’s hear it for Captain America!”

“Asshole,” Steve mouthed at Bucky, but Bucky just smiled his lopsided smile at him as the crowd of soldiers cheered.

The base dissolved into reunions. Some of the rescued headed directly for the medical tent, but most celebrated their return to safety. Soldiers dragged benches out of the mess hall and the former prisoners sat to have their scraggly beards and knotted, filthy hair shaved off. A trumpet and a drum showed up and there was singing and parading. The colonel let the chaos run its course and set his officers organizing a debriefing schedule for the ex-POWs. “Rogers, get yourself fed, you’re looking peaky. Come to my tent at 1300 to debrief.”

“Yes, sir.” Steve wanted nothing more than to wash and get out of the damn costume, which was itching like hell. “C’mon, Bucky, let’s clean up.” The camp had no showers, but there was a well and buckets and he retrieved a hard bar of soap from his tent. Steve tried to undress without letting Bucky see the tights, but he knew he wasn’t successful when he saw Bucky’s smirk. Steve was grateful Bucky was too tired to hassle him, then felt guilty for that. He rolled the uniform into a dirty bundle and focused on washing a week’s worth of grime off himself.

Bucky took off his shirt, but not his pants, and washed off with the cold water, hissing at the temperature. What Steve saw above the belt was distressing. Bucky was pale, and so gaunt, his stomach hollow, his muscles sharply defined by a lack of body fat. Much worse were the half-healed wounds, everywhere: cuts and holes and square patches of angry red sores. The pants were baggy at the waist.

“Bucky,” Steve said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too,” Bucky said, not meeting his eyes.

“Don’t you need to go to medical?”

Bucky shook his head vigorously. “No! I mean, no, I don’t need to. It’s not as bad as it looks. I’ve healed a lot. I just—“ he looked at Steve, and his eyes looked about a hundred years old.

“Okay, Buck,” Steve said. “How about we get some food in you?”

They got a lunch that was plentiful if not good, and Bucky devoured most of a second plate before his head started nodding.

“Why don’t you go take a siesta in my tent, it’ll be quieter than the NCO barracks,” Steve said. Bucky nodded.

Bucky all but fell into the cot. Steve pulled a blanket over him and stroked his close-cropped hair, so happy to see him, so distressed to see his condition. Bucky smiled and said sleepily, “Quit fussin’, ‘m fine,” and his eyes were already closed.

Steve returned to Phillips’ command tent for his debrief. He solemnly handed over the dog tags he’d taken from dead Americans and mentioned how there’d been a lot of soldiers who’d been vaporized without a trace by Hydra’s weapons. “Come again?” Phillips said.

“It’s part of the story,” Steve said.

Phillips sighed, handed the dog tags over to the corporal who was serving as his secretary, and beckoned Steve into a private room. Peggy and a stenographer were already present.

It took the rest of the afternoon, until well after sunset, for Steve to tell Phillips and Peggy everything he could remember about the rescue and all the things he’d seen in the base. Phillips ordered food sent to them, and they ate as he talked. When he was done, the colonel drummed his fingers on the table.

“All right. We’ll debrief the rest tomorrow and Tuesday and get to work on the honorable discharges. We need to contact Stark about the weapons, see what he can make of them. Carter, get what you can out of the European POWs. I want to get you,” meaning Steve, “back to SSR headquarters as soon as possible to share your intel.”

“I would like to be present for Sergeant Barnes’ debrief,” Peggy said. “I’m concerned about the experiments Hydra has been attempting. Is he recovered enough to talk to us tomorrow, do you think, or should we give him more time?”

“It’s probably better for him to get it out of the way,” Steve said.

When Steve returned to his tent, Bucky was still out cold on his cot. Steve weighed whether to wake him, but decided Bucky likely needed comfortable sleep more than food. He scrounged around the base for some extra blankets and made up a pallet for himself on the ground next to the cot. For several minutes, he sat on the ground, staring at Bucky’s sleeping face. Bucky’d always been the strong one, but now he seemed brittle, fragile. Not broken, but stretched thin. Briefly Steve had the urge to pull out his sketchbook, but then decided he didn’t want to remember Bucky like this. Instead, he rolled himself in his blanket and turned off the lantern.

In the dark, the sounds outside his tent receded, and he could hear Bucky’s deep, even breaths. It filled him with peace. He was worried about Bucky, but the steady breathing so close to him felt like home. He slept, too.

“No, please – please don’t – no, no nono—aaah!“ Steve shot awake to Bucky’s shouting nightmare.

Instinctively Steve sat up, reached across the body in the cot, and pulled Bucky over and down atop him, wrapping him up in his strong arms and legs. “Bucky, Bucky, s’okay, I got you, I’m here, you’re safe, It’s Steve, you’re with me, Bucky, you’re safe—“ he babbled. Bucky stopped screaming but he was still moaning, an agonizing sound, begging, “no, please, no—“ Steve gripped him so hard Bucky couldn’t move, whispering into his ear, and presently the moaning stopped and there was just rapid, shallow breathing.

Steve felt just a tiny bit of relaxation in the body in his arms and he moved one hand to the back of Bucky’s head, stroking his hair. “Buck. I’m here. You’re safe. I got you.”

The rapid breathing slowed. Still ragged. “Steve,” he breathed.

“Yeah, buddy. I’m here.”

“Are we dead?”

Steve felt tears in his eyes. “We’re not. You’re free. I’m here. You’re here with me.”

Bucky shuddered. His body relaxed a little and he drew his knees up and elbows in, curling into a fetal position. Steve shifted, rolling them both to the side, to wrap himself around him, wrapping as much of Bucky’s body as he could with his own.

“You’re so big.”

“All the better to take care of you.”

Steve felt Bucky stiffen a little. “That’s—that’s not—“

“Hey,” Steve said. “It’s my turn. God, I missed you, you big lug. Let me take care of you for once.”

Steve felt the tension in Bucky’s body ebb a little more. Falling asleep again, Steve realized. Maybe he’d never been fully awake. With luck, he wouldn’t remember this episode in the morning. As Bucky’s body relaxed, Steve debated trying to move them both onto the cot, but Bucky seemed so limp, and the cot probably wouldn’t withstand their combined weight. The blankets and the ground were more comfortable than they’d been sleeping for a week. Than Bucky had had for two months.

Steve wriggled a little to find a position that wasn’t too bad, and let Bucky fall back into slumber. His head was pillowed on Steve’s bicep, his face pressed lightly into his chest, his fingers curled in Steve’s shirt. Each time he exhaled, the warm breath blew across Steve’s collarbones. It was good.

Both of them slept the rest of the night. By morning, Bucky had rolled off of Steve, half under the cot. It hadn’t seemed to bother him at all that he was lying on nothing more than canvas over lumpy ground.

They both stirred when Reveille sounded. Bucky woke with a start, saw Steve, said “Where am I?” before he was fully awake.

“You’re free. You’re back at camp. You’re safe,” Steve repeated.

“Right. Okay,” Bucky said, not meeting Steve’s eyes.

“We gotta debrief this morning,” Steve said when he thought Bucky knew where he was. “Freshen up, eat breakfast, then we can get this over with.” Bucky clenched his fists. “You gonna be okay?”

“’m fine—I—no,” Bucky said, finally. “It—it was bad in there, Steve.” There was a hitch in his breath.

Steve wanted to wrap him in a hundred blankets and fly him back to New York. Instead, he knelt on the ground next to Bucky and asked, “Do you want to talk about it with me first?”

Bucky shook his head miserably. “Rather only tell it once, if I can.”

Peggy found them in the officers’ mess as both of them were tucking in to their second plates of breakfast. Steve introduced them. It shocked him that Bucky appeared too tired to flirt. She sized up Bucky, gazed at his miserable, tense face. “Let’s take a walk,” she said when they all finished eating.

They walked west, away from camp and toward forest. They didn’t talk. The day was crisp but sunny. About a hundred yards out of the camp, Peggy turned aside to a narrow trail leading off into the woods. The trail led angled up along a ridge. It led up to an alcove in the side of the ridge, overlooking a deep valley. A trickle of water moved through the valley, but nothing like the torrent it could contain after spring rains. Once the three of them sat, it was very peaceful, birdsong and stream the only ambient sounds.

Steve sat next to Bucky, their hips touching. He had his blue sketchbook and was doodling some of the leaves that littered the ground. Peggy had a notebook and a pencil. Bucky took out his pocketknife and fiddled with it nervously. Steve sketched Bucky’s folded hands, sometimes white-knuckled as he told his story.

“Let’s start from the beginning, when you were captured,” Peggy said.

Bucky described how, in the middle of a battle with a German division, strange tanks shooting blue lights that disintegrated men crashed through the trees, vaporizing Germans and Americans alike. The surrender, the imprisonment, the forced labor. Everything he could remember about the weapons they were assembling. Peggy made a note to talk to Gabe next, to see what he’d overheard in German. Bucky talked about the scheme that Hydra had, of mixing ethnicities in the cells. Hydra thought that they’d foster conflict, but they’d accidentally assembled diverse teams of complementary skill sets who cooperated in the eventual breakout.

Bucky talked about how Hydra troops took prisoners one at a time from the cells, mostly officers, all white men. “We thought they were just being taken for interrogation,” Bucky said. “And when they took me, that’s what they did, at first. I didn’t tell them anything. Nothing true, anyway. I might have lied a lot.”

I’ll bet you did, Steve thought, smiling. He continued sketching.

“It was a weird interrogation. I felt like they weren’t trying very hard? Then Zola came in.”

“Arnim Zola,” Peggy prompted.

“Yeah. Ratty little guy, but all the Hydra soldiers were scared of him.” He looked away from Peggy. “They made me strip. He did all this poking and prodding and measuring and he was looking at me like I was a fuckin’ prize bull.” He ducked his head. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“It’s quite all right,” Peggy said. “Say it however you need to.”

“Zola told me to pick up my clothes and then the bastard congratulated me. Told me I was about to ‘make a significant contribution to the development of the superman.’ There was another room with solitary cells. He put me in one of those.

“There were other guys in cells, about a dozen of them. They would take us out one at a time, to—to experiment.” Bucky’s teeth chattered. Steve leaned into him a little.

“Take your time,” Peggy said. “These details are very important. Tell me everything you can remember.”

It was horrible to listen to. Bucky said were kept in the cells except when Zola was running his experiments. They were not allowed to speak to each other. The guards enforced their orders with batons that delivered electric shocks. When the men were retrieved from the cells, they were ordered to strip and leave their clothing behind, brought to the lab as naked as animals. Then he paused, seemingly unable to proceed.

“Can you tell me about the experiments?” Peggy asked.

“I—they—“ Bucky stopped. “Steve, I don’t want you listening to this.”

Steve wanted to say, _I’m with you, if you had to go through it I can go through listening to it_, but Peggy said, “It may be for the best that you get some air, Steve,” and he left the little cave.

He managed to get out of earshot (he thought) before he threw up everything in his stomach, first time that had happened since the serum. He heaved dry and panted, wishing for faces to punch, bones to crack under his hands, for what they’d done to Bucky.

But there were no enemies to hit and nothing to punch, just bare trees and the soft litter of leaves on the ground, and the distant trickling sound of the river. Steve stilled his breathing. He thought: mindless violence will not undo what the bastards did. Planned violence, now, that might prevent them from hurting anybody else.

Steve thought of the map of Hydra facilities he’d seen at the enemy base. For the second time, he felt a blinding flash of _purpose_. He knew what the right thing was to do. He would destroy Hydra. Every base, every resource. Burn it all to the ground. Bucky could help, and maybe vengeance would make him feel better. Steve could think of a few other guys who’d be useful, too. That felt right.

Steve kicked leaves over the mess he’d made on the ground, rinsed his mouth out with his canteen, and walked a little farther up the ridge to a spot with good sight lines down over where he thought the little cave was. It was very peaceful, this spot in the middle of a war. He stood and enjoyed the peace and how it twined with his new purpose. Achieving that purpose could bring this peace to everyone, would bring a faster end to the war. It was good.

When he judged that enough time had passed, he returned to the cliff alcove. He found that the direction of debriefing had switched: Peggy was answering Bucky’s questions about what had happened to Steve.

Bucky glared at him. “Steve, you jumped on a fucking grenade, what’s wrong with you?”

“It was a dummy grenade,” Steve said equably.

“You didn’t know that!”

Steve smiled, because it was like old times to have Bucky yelling at him for his lack of self-preservation.

“How the hell did you survive while I was gone?” Bucky asked.

“Dumb luck, I guess.”

Peggy’s otherwise professionally composed face held maybe just a little bit of a smile. She stood and said, “Thank you, Sergeant Barnes. I know this was a difficult conversation for you, but you have provided us with valuable intelligence. I’m going to have to ask you to do one more thing.”

Bucky looked very tired. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I understand that you have declined medical examination. I would like to ask you to accept medical treatment. I would like for a doctor to examine you and provide an independent report of the injuries he finds you have sustained, and how they are healing.”

Bucky looked down at the ground. “Okay,” he said, quietly.

Steve felt the overpowering urge to hug him, but he just patted Bucky on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go back to camp.”

When they returned, Bucky immediately dove into Steve’s tent and fell into the cot to sleep again. Peggy turned to Steve and said: “we need to talk.”

“I’d like to talk to you, too.”

“Go ahead, then.”

They walked for a moment in quiet, observing the camp’s activity. Steve turned to Peggy. “I want to destroy Hydra. I can’t do it alone. But I can’t do it with a big force. I want to lead a small commando unit. A team of specialists who can move fast, strike surgically, respond quickly to intelligence, and sabotage them. Fight as dirty as we need to. Burn them to the ground before they see us coming. I can build and lead that force but I need intelligence support. I need your help, Agent Carter.”

Her smile was predatory. “It would be my great honor to assist you, Captain Rogers.”

He felt lucky. He held out his hand and she shook it firmly.

“Whom did you have in mind for your force?” she asked. Steve talked about the men he’d met during the march home from Azzano. Peggy listened and offered her assistance in recruiting them, in handling the bureaucratic details, if they were amenable.

By the time that conversation ended, they were at the edge of camp again. They turned and looked back at the activity. Steve wondered if Bucky was sleeping.

“We need to talk about your friend,” Peggy said.

“Can you read minds?” he asked.

She held his eyes. “You have a particular expression when you are thinking of him.”

Steve didn’t know why, but he blushed.

“He will not be the same man that he was when he left New York,” she said. “War, on its own, changes men. Being imprisoned and tortured changes them more. It’s hard. Not only for the survivor, but also for those around them. He has scars that you can’t see.”

“I’ll do anything to help him.”

“He has experienced more than anyone I have known to survive. You told us he was the only survivor you found in Zola’s lab. James says he was the only survivor of the experiments for many days, perhaps two weeks. It’s impossible to know why he lived – whether he was treated differently, or responded better to the drugs they were giving him, or if he’s uniquely impervious to torture.”

Steve smiled sadly. “We got beat up a lot, and we struggled a lot, but I don’t know how unique that was,” Steve said. “A lot of people had a tough time. We always had each other to keep our spirits up, though. I hate that he had to suffer this at all, but it’s worse that it was alone.”

“I do have a hypothesis.”

“What?”

“I think Zola is trying to reproduce Erskine’s serum. The experiments that James described – I think Zola was injecting something into the men, and testing healing speed and tolerance to pain. Perhaps James survived because he responded to it better than most, or he was given more.”

Steve wondered if the doctors at Alamogordo would’ve wanted to do the same kinds of tests on him. Cut him to see how he bled and healed. He remembered why the USO show had been the better choice. “You can’t have him as a guinea pig, either,” he said.

Peggy glared at him. “I never wanted that for you, and I would never suggest we force that on your friend, either.”

Steve sighed. “I’m sorry. Thank you, Peggy. For giving me the opportunity to save him. And the other men.”

Stark flew in that afternoon to retrieve the Hydra weapons. Morita and Dernier demonstrated the different guns for him as Steve and Peggy looked on, Stark easily shifting back and forth from English to French as the three of them discussed the way the guns operated. He talked at a mile a minute about how the energy interacted with the materials it struck, evidently dumbfounded by their power.

“I can’t decide if it’s bad or good to see Stark surprised,” Steve said to Peggy. “I don’t like that he doesn’t know how these weapons work, but it’s nice to see his ego taken down a notch.”

“Quite,” Peggy said, her eyes dancing.

Stark, being Stark, insisted on a good Italian meal with good company and good wine before he flew home to London. That’s how Stark – who insisted Steve call him Howard – ended up driving a jeep containing him, Peggy, and Monty to a winery where they ate a memorable meal of cured meats and cheese and wine, which Howard paid for with a pair of high-powered rifles and a box of ammunition. Monty told Howard a colorful eyewitness account of Steve’s invasion of the Hydra base. Howard ate it up, clapping Steve on the shoulder and howling with laughter.

Howard insisted on driving back, with Peggy accompanying him in the front. Monty entertained Steve with stories of the incapacity of Britain’s upperclass officers. “The soldiers are tough and brave,” Monty said, “but the officers, as a rule, are dreadful. I envy your belonging to a fighting force where merit, not birth, is at least some consideration in an officer’s rank.”

“Would you be willing to leave the British armed forces to join a risky mission of retribution against Hydra?” Steve asked.

“That would depend on who was leading the mission.”

“I am.”

“Sounds rather fun, actually.”

Despite the quantity of Chianti he’d consumed, Howard got them back to the base without incident. “I’m returning to London with Howard in the morning,” Peggy told Steve when they arrived. “I’ll lay the groundwork for your team and begin developing mission plans. Howard has ideas about how to properly equip you. Would you like to accompany us?”

“No,” Steve said. “I’ll stay here and train with the 107th until their discharges come through. Unless you need help keeping Stark from—“

“Steven,” Peggy said icily, “I can hold my own with Howard.”

Steve nodded and couldn’t figure out whether to bow or salute so he froze. Peggy quirked an eyebrow at him, turned on her heel, and left.

“Cold as steel, that one,” Monty remarked.

“Strong as steel, too,” Steve said.

The SSR wound up staying at the Italian base for several more days while Phillips fretted at the delay. The Army bureaucracy moved agonizingly slowly toward discharging the ex-prisoners, and there was difficulty finding adequate transport for the Hydra tanks. A British cargo plane, having delivered supplies, picked up Monty and his countrymen to return them to London.

Bucky spent two more days doing little but eating and sleeping. Nights were still bad; he remained in Steve’s tent, where Steve slept on an adjacent cot and could cut off his nightmares quickly. But by the third day, Bucky began to look less hollow, sounding a little more like his old self.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Bucky said to Steve over breakfast. “This Captain America business. It’s a character. I guess I have to believe the story of how they turned you into—“ he gestured at Steve, “_this_. But two years of City University art school can’t make you a real army officer. How are you all of a sudden commanding troops?”

“While the USO was planning the tour, I figured out how to educate myself on the road,” Steve said. “We had so much time sitting around on the tour. I got book lists and notes from West Point professors. Every big city we went to, I found somebody who could teach me something new. I made them test me, and I learned what I needed to. I visited VFWs and talked to veterans about what war was really like.”

“And then you defied orders and just walked into a Hydra base and since then you’ve been a real captain.”

“Pretty much,” Steve said.

“The balls on you,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “You really are Steven G. Rogers of Brooklyn, New York. You’re the only guy I know who could’ve pulled this off.” Steve laughed.

Since Bucky wasn’t medically cleared for anything very active yet, he offered to take Steve to the base’s shooting range. They stopped at the NCO barracks for Bucky to pick up a shocking number of firearms.

“How many guns does one soldier need?” Steve asked.

Bucky laughed. “Just souvenirs from my Nazi pals,” he said. “The fuckers make good weapons. It’s good to be able to pick up any gun from a battlefield and be able to use it, good to know how well they shoot.” He handed a couple to Steve along with the binoculars, and they walked to the range, collecting ammunition there.

Bucky was an amazing shot. Steve looked through the binoculars as Bucky achieved heart and head shots on the painted, straw-stuffed targets with all of his weapons.

As Bucky continued, Steve lowered the binoculars to observe his friend at work. Bucky’s whole body went still, like a statue, between perfectly placed shots. Steve watched his breathing rhythm, in and out, in, then long, slow, breath, out, stillness, then imperceptible squeeze of the trigger and loud report.

The last weapon he used was a huge German-made rifle with a monster scope. “With this baby I can take down a target from a mile away, maybe more,” Bucky said. He pointed out a tree far beyond the targets on the range, and Steve looked through the binoculars as Bucky methodically shot branch tips off of it, pruning the tree back.

Steve turned to him with admiration, knowing that even his serum-enhanced body couldn’t outshoot Bucky, not without considerable practice. “How did you learn to do that?”

Bucky shrugged. “A little talent, good vision, luck. I was tapped for marksman training early on, and I was just good at it. It’s kinda my thing now.”

“It’s amazing.”

As Bucky disassembled his arsenal, Steve asked him: “What do you want to do now? You going to accept that discharge, go home?”

“I dunno,” Bucky said. “Guess it depends what you’re doing next.”

Steve told him the plan.

Bucky pressed his lips together. “You fucker,” he said.

“What?” Steve asked, confused.

Bucky looked down and shook his head. “All this time, I’ve been fighting for you, Steve. Fighting to keep you safe at home. It’s been hell. But I thought if I just fought hard enough, killed enough Krauts, I could finish the war before you got hurt. And this whole time you’ve been fighting against me to get here. And now you want to go up against a whole goddamn army with just six guys. You total asshole. I’m not going to let you do it.”

Steve smirked at Bucky. “Have you ever been able to stop me from fighting before?”

“Fuck you.”

“I can’t change what I am, Bucky. The serum – it changed me on the outside, but nothin’ inside me is different. I’m the same as I always was. I can just finally win fights that my big mouth gets me into.”

“I guess I should be glad you don’t need me to fight your fights anymore.”

That cut into Steve’s heart like a knife. “Bucky. No.” He tried a different tack. “Listen, Buck. I used to lose every fight I was in. Then you came along. You saved my life. Not just by fighting for me. By watching out for me. Goddammit, by taking care of me. By keeping me from being a complete idiot. Most of the time.”

Steve could see that, despite his anger, Bucky was smiling, just a little.

“I still need you, Buck. I can win fistfights now, but these aren’t back-alley brawls I’m facing. I need the best team I can build. And there’s no way I wouldn’t have you at my back. My god, shooting like that, with you covering me, nobody could get close to me. But it’s a lot to ask you. You could go home. You should go home. You’ve served, honorably. You could be safe.”

“Are you really asking me to do that?” Bucky asked. “Just go home, and leave you here to get killed?”

Steve sighed and thought about his answer. He hated himself a little bit for saying it, but: “No. I want you with me, Buck. I’m a selfish jerk, but I want you with me.”

Bucky nodded. “That’s the least stupid thing you’ve said all day. I’m sticking around.”

“I don’t deserve you, Buck.”

“Damn right you don’t.”

That afternoon, the bureaucratic blockage finally broke, and Phillips was able to make preparations to return the SSR operations to their base in London. Cargo planes would arrive from London overnight, and fly the division home the next night. Steve talked to Jones, Morita, Dernier, and Dugan about returning to London with him. They all agreed.

The base was raucous that evening as active members of the 107th said their goodbyes to those who’d accepted discharges. Steve watched from a distance as Bucky moved through the crowd of men, hugging and back-slapping. He felt a sense of déjà vu, remembering all the times he’d watched from the walls as Bucky worked a dance hall in similar fashion. Steve lost time, following that memory.

Bucky had another nightmare that night. Steve hugged him as he sweated and sobbed and came back to himself. “Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asked, for the umpteenth time.

Bucky shook his head. “Wouldn’t help.” His breathing slowed and he clenched and unclenched his fists. “Fuck. There’s no way I’m getting back to sleep tonight. I’m gonna take a walk.”

“I’m coming with,” Steve said, and he figured it was a sign of how worked up Bucky still was that he didn’t say no.

The Moon was full, coloring the landscape of the base in silver. Bucky walked west, and the moonlight fell full on his face, turning it to marble, like a Roman god or a church angel. It was so beautiful. Steve fixed the image in his mind to draw later. How the moonlight described Bucky’s brow, his nose, his cheekbones, the curve of his lower lip, his lowered eyelids, setting his eyes into deep shadow.

Steve realized that Bucky was following the course they’d taken with Peggy a few days prior. They stepped into the trees, approached the path up the ridge, walking into moon shadow, and then Bucky stopped. Turned, crossed his arms, looked at Steve. He seemed to be looking for something.

“Steve?” he asked, quietly.

“Yeah?”

“There’s somethin’ I gotta ask you.”

Steve felt his brow crease. “What, Bucky? You can ask me anything.”

Bucky bit his lip and stepped closer. And then the eyes were closing and what the fuck was happening, lips on his lips and it was so soft and Steve couldn’t breathe, but Bucky’s breath was in his mouth, his hands on his narrow waist. Bucky pulled back, sucking a little on Steve’s lower lip as they parted, and looked him in the eyes. In the moonlight, his eyes were nearly black.

“I’m asking, Steve, and I need you to answer. Yes or no is okay, say no and I won’t do it again. But I gotta know if you want this.”

Steve couldn’t catch his breath. This was wrong, it was wrong, but he’d _kissed Bucky and he wanted to do it again_, oh my God. “It’s a sin,” he said to the angel in front of him.

“Killing’s a sin,” Bucky spat. “But I’ve killed and I’ve killed, and I’m gonna keep killing until this goddammed war is over. I killed so much I felt dead, I was dead, but seeing you again brought me back. You brought me back. This sin doesn’t hurt anybody, and I need to feel alive. But tell me you don’t want it, and I won’t.”

Bucky looked aside, those lashes falling. It broke the spell of his eyes, made Steve look at Bucky’s full lips. He could still taste them, and he involuntarily licked his own. Steve tried to tell himself it was wrong. He felt flushed from his ears to his feet, felt a pull in his groin that made it clear what he wanted. Didn’t know he’d wanted it until now, but now he knew. “Buck…” he said, his eyes open, his lips open, afraid, ready to say no, but his hands lifted up of their own volition, and he stepped forward.

It was all the invitation Bucky needed. Bucky’s lips crushed Steve’s. Bucky sucked all the air out of Steve, took possession of his lungs, sucking the living breath out of him. He pressed Steve against a tree, running his hands up under Steve’s coat, under his shirt, over his skin. Steve was taken aback for a second by Bucky’s ferocity but quickly gave back as good as he got, cupping the back of Bucky’s head, stroking his hair, pressing down on his mouth. Bucky reached a finger to Steve’s lower lip and pulled his mouth open, licking inside. Steve tried out his tongue too, and teeth, nipping at Bucky’s lip, and Bucky trembled, grinding his body against Steve’s from chest to knees.

After a few minutes, the initial urgency ebbed. Steve opened his eyes, found he was staring directly into dark eyes under heavy lashes. He exhaled. So beautiful. More beautiful, up close. Bucky kissed him again, gently, then nibbled down to his chin, up his jawline, licked under his jaw at his throat. Steve shuddered, dropping his mouth to Bucky’s neck, sucking in a kiss.

“Ow.” Steve pulled back and was dismayed to see the dark mark he’d left on Bucky’s throat. Bucky smiled. “Careful where you leave those, people might have questions.”

Steve froze, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m sorry – we shouldn’t—“ He leaned away, then he flushed all over again as his dick throbbed where it pressed against Bucky’s hip. “This isn’t a good idea,” he squeaked.

Bucky smiled wider, predatory. “You’re givin’ me mixed signals here, Stevie.” He cupped Steve through his pants. “Bet you I can convince you it is a good idea.” Steve gulped, but couldn’t resist the bait, couldn’t ever fail to rise to the challenge when Bucky goaded him.

“Bet you can’t,” Steve said, knowing it was dangerous.

Bucky held Steve’s gaze with his eyes and unbuckled Steve’s belt. He leaned in for a kiss and his tongue searched inside Steve’s mouth as Bucky opened his fly. Then Bucky reached into his waistband and encircled Steve with his hand, sending a jolt of electricity to Steve’s feet.

Bucky dropped to his knees, staring at Steve’s eyes all the while. Licked his lips. Steve realized what Bucky was about to do and said “Holy shit.”

Bucky proceeded to take him to pieces with his mouth, nibbling, licking, sucking, hollowing his cheeks, bringing Steve to the edge and then backing off before enveloping him again in wet warmth, over and over. Bucky circled his tongue and sucked and Steve begged and pleaded for release. Bucky pulled off completely and watched him suffer and gasp untouched, as the November breeze blew against the chilling saliva on his sensitive skin.

“Are you sure you’re all right with this?” Bucky asked archly, dropping a light kiss on him. “I can’t tell if you like it or not.”

Steve throbbed and moaned. “God, Bucky, please, I can’t stand it, I’m gonna fall over, I need you—“

“I won’t let you fall,” Bucky said, his hands gripping Steve’s hips, and he sucked Steve in and bobbed his head, and Steve saw stars.

His legs really did give out, when it was over. Bucky laughed and pulled on the waistband of Steve’s pants as he sank to the ground, making sure his bare ass didn’t hit the forest floor. Steve leaned against the tree, still panting, shuddering with aftershocks. He felt Bucky lean close, tuck his head between Steve’s shoulder and jaw, throw his arm across Steve’s chest.

“That wasn’t anything like jacking off,” Steve said.

“Sure isn’t,” Bucky said. “Been thinking about sucking you off for a long time but I always figured before that I’d give you a heart attack.”

“Feel like I’m havin’ a heart attack right now,” Steve said. Bucky chuckled. “How do you know how to do all those things? How did you know what would feel so good?”

Bucky didn’t answer right away, and Steve turned and looked at him, feeling dizzy at the sight of those eyes and those lips that had turned him to jelly. His cock twitched and it made his whole body shudder. Bucky’s lips curved into a familiar, mischievous smile. “I’m a professional,” Bucky said. “Used these skills to pay for your art school.”

“You _what?_”

“My night work. At the queer bars. Guys’ll pay a dollar for a quick suck job. Easiest money I ever made in my life. Got some good repeat johns who’d pay me more for higher quality.”

“Oh my god. Bucky.”

“Don’t get all Sister Mary Catherine on me, Steve. We needed that money, and nothing I did hurt anybody, least of all me. Much better work than killing my back hauling freight. And I like sucking cock.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh at that bald statement. “I kinda noticed.” He cupped his hand on Bucky’s cheek and kissed him gently. “Can I…return the favor? I won’t be as good as you but I can learn.”

Bucky’s expression shifted and his body tensed. “No. I mean, no, I can’t right now. I’m still – I need some time, I got to recover a little more—“ he stuttered.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Steve said, petting Bucky’s head. “I get it. You just tell me when you’re ready, okay, Buck?” Bucky nodded against his shoulder. Steve threw an arm around him, hugged him tight. They sat for a little while like that. “I thought you liked girls,” Steve said finally.

Bucky shrugged against him. “I do like girls. I like feeling good. Making people feel good. Doesn’t matter who. And it’s free.”

So crass. Steve had to laugh. He replayed Bucky’s performance in his head, still feeling shame but knowing he would accept it again and again.

“How did we get here?” Steve asked. “Brooklyn feels so far away.”

“It is far away,” Bucky said. “Those two Brooklyn boys aren’t real anymore. They’re gone. This is real, now. And it won’t be real tomorrow.”

“Suddenly you’re a philosopher,” Steve said. Bucky shrugged again. “Have you…have you really wanted to do that for a long time?”

“I know how you looked at me. Like a girl with a crush.” Steve flushed. “I wanted you to have a good time. It made me sick, how no girls would have you. But I didn’t want to hurt you. You just – you weren’t strong, and I thought I might hurt you, and it’s fucking hard to live as a homosexual. I know, some of my johns told me stories. It’s really scary.”

Steve didn’t want to dwell on that word, because it made him feel shame again. Instead, he asked: “So why now?”

“Well, I couldn’t hurt you now if I tried. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Steve, but we’re in a war. I should’ve died back in Azzano. We’re probably going to die in this war somehow. That makes things easier. We don’t need to worry about how to live after.”

“That’s fucking bleak, Bucky.”

“S’true.”

“I’m not planning on letting you die.”

“You don’t plan anything, Steve. You just ran headfirst by yourself into a Nazi installation wearing tights carrying tin pan for a shield and no gun.”

“And I won.”

Bucky barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

They heard the distant roar of planes. Hopefully the SSR cargo planes coming in, and not a German attack. They got up, Steve self-consciously buttoning his fly, and hiked back to camp. They curled up into a tangle of arms and legs on the floor of Steve’s tent until Reveille. Steve didn’t sleep, just kept his nose pressed to the top of Bucky’s head, breathing him in.

When Steve packed up his tent the next day, he considered the pile of clothes he’d worn to Azzano and back. They were trashed, but the costume and the aviator jacket and the combat pants felt significant, a record of the journey that had made him truly deserving of his captaincy. And he’d saved Bucky’s life, besides. Began a new chapter of both their lives, maybe. He couldn’t bring himself to throw the clothes away. He stuffed them in a pillowcase and packed the bundle in the bottom of his trunk.

They all flew back to London in the cold, loud belly of a cargo plane after sunset. Soldiers shared blankets to keep warm, snoozing in dogpiles. Under their shared blanket, Steve laced his fingers with Bucky’s, and they tipped their heads together and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • The movies and comics have very different things to say about where all the Howlies came from. In the movie, Dum Dum and Gabe are with Bucky in the 107th. In the comics, neither is. I’ve decided Dum Dum is part of the 107th but that the comic origin for Gabe made no sense, he has to have come from an all-Black unit.  
• I didn’t get until watching Agent Carter (season 1, ep 5) that the Howling Commandos were part of the 107th. I thought they were just associated with the SSR. I cannot figure out the relationship between the SSR and the 107th. I’m very confused. I tried to write around that.

**Author's Note:**

> • I've tagged these movie compliant, but I figure movies are always condensing real-life events, so I'm spreading some of the movie events out in time.  
• An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists is a real book by Fritz Schider that was published in German in 1929 and translated to English and reprinted in New York in 1947. Close enough.  
• The drawing Steve is doing as the story opens is copying Charles Bargue’s lithographs, a traditional classical drawing course since the late 19th century. I’m taking the course as I write this story.  
• In the movie timeline, Bucky is in training for an improbable 18 months before being shipped out in June 1943. Then a ton of stuff happens that month (including all of Steve’s basic training and the development of an entire USO show, what the hell). I’ve shifted the timeline of the events at the beginning of TFA so they happen a year earlier, in 1942, which makes Bucky’s training no more than 6 months long (still long! But he’s an officer and trained marksman so maybe that makes sense), and gives a lot more room for all the events that happen in June 1943 in the movie, and gives more space for the USO to develop the show and also write and then film several movies before the USO goes to Europe, which happens, canonically, in October/November 1943.  
• I have a few chapters written but a lot of work left to do. I'm new to MCU fandom and this is my first fanfic writing in 25 years. I'm going to float a couple chapters out there to see how they're received. I'm looking for a beta reader.  
• The rating is going to go up over time, probably to Mature.


End file.
